UPDATED 1:45 p.m. with details about elk and salvaged meat.  UPDATED 2:30 p.m. with quotes from landowner Joe Lenz.

WILDLIFE -- Wow, talk about powerful stories: Two bull elk died after a bloody fight in which both were gored multiple times, their antlers got locked and they ended up tangled in a barbed wire property fence, according to news reports from North Idaho.

One bull died from injuries sustained in the struggle, including a possible broken neck, and the larger one was in such bad shape it had to be put down by a property owner. Dawna Lenz told the Coeur d'Alene Press the elk were spotted first thing Friday morning on her 410-acre property up Alder Creek near Wolf Lodge.

"People from Coeur d'Alene come out here all the time to view the elk," Lenz told the newspaper Monday. "We generally in the morning have anywhere between 40 and 80 head, and then again in the afternoon at certain times of the year"

• See story by David Cole, Coeur d'Alene Press. More here.

Contacted this afternoon, Wayne Wakkinen, regional wildlife manager for the Idaho Fish and Game Department said:

• With the help of the landowners and their tractors, Idaho Fish and Game was able to salvage 1,017 pounds of meat from the two bulls and deliver "one heck of a pickup-load of protein" to the area food bank.
• The antlers also were salvaged and will be available to the public the spring auction IFG holds each spring somewhere in the state to sell wildlife skins and parts staffers collect in the course of their enforcement and conservation work.
• One of the elk, which was dead in the battle, was a six-by-six point bull about 7-8 years old.
• The larger of the two elk, which was still alive but had to be euthanized, was a 6-by-8-point bull around 4 years old.

The antlers weren't locked, but they were tangled and tied together in the barbed wire as the two bulls fought. Joe Lenz said about a tenth of a mile of four-strand fence was damaged in the battle.

"I've lived here all my life and never seen anything remotely like that," said Lenz, a rancher. "All four strands were damaged in that stretch, so they took out about a quarter mile of fence total. I'd say there was a bout 50 pounds of wire tangled in their antlers alone.

"They were big animals, probably 1,200 pounds or more on the hoof apiece.  They were bigger than most any hunter would take in a lifetime."

Dawna Lenz said some people have wondered if the landowners got to keep the meat.

"We're so happy that so much meat is going to the needy," she said. "'No,'" I tell people, we didn't get the meat, but Joe got to keep the mess!"

 

 

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